


The Distance Between Shelters

by intentioncraft



Series: It's Gonna Be Better [5]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M, Multi, Open Relationships, Past Relationships, Relationship Negotiation, Sub Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-02
Updated: 2016-06-02
Packaged: 2018-07-11 19:54:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,481
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7067779
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/intentioncraft/pseuds/intentioncraft
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Benny’s clear blue eyes go softer for Dean. His greeting seemed both thankful and heavy with longing at the same time, but the contradiction doesn’t cause strife between them, and they make small talk of the sort that doesn’t distinguish between best friends and acquaintances.</p>
<p>However, when Benny finally moves his attention from Dean to Cain, Benny’s eyes go inexplicably cold and suspicious, “Friend of yours?” he addresses Dean as his gaze bores into Cain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Distance Between Shelters

**Author's Note:**

> proof that i never abandon any verse. it's been actually sitting on google drive for...a couple years :|| my perfectionist tendencies were keeping me from posting it and i'm trying to break free from that, because then i'll never get anything done. 
> 
> small note, benny does not enjoy BDSM. it's just not his thing, and that's fine.

“Her name’s Charlie.”

Dean leans forward with his arms folded on the countertop. His gaze is fixed on his fingers as they tap an erratic tempo on the hard surface.

He explains his request to Cain like he’s presenting a thesis but in more perforated style. Shyly, stiltedly, he draws out the coarse spiral of his request that, rather than letting Cain get in a word or give an answer, stalls the entire conversation with more Dean-related trivia.

“Known her since we were kids. She was in my foster sister’s grade but we sorta became friends when we realize we had uh…lots in common.”

Standing next to the open oven, Cain pokes the fresh banana loaf with a butter knife. The ends are too crunchy, a little bit too dark and he saws them off with a serrated knife to throw them out.  _ Lots in common _ . That could mean any number of things and the way Dean rambles on and on about it like he’s got no control over what comes out of his mouth, Cain expects Dean to give him details without having to ask.

But Dean looks up from his hands when he hears the lid of the garbage bin hit the wall, and says, “Dude, no. That’s the best part,” he calls at him from across the kitchen, “Gimme those. Got any milk?”

“There should be a carton in the fridge still,” Cain replies and pulls a clean plate down for Dean so he doesn’t scatter crumbs all over the newly washed kitchen floor. Dean has been hanging around all Saturday morning, which is when Cain normally does most of his housework so he had some much appreciated help and the occasional break for distraction, but now he's starting to understand Dean's motives, “Why do you want me to go with you?”

Dean shrugs with the piece of banana loaf clamped between his teeth as he pours the milk into a glass he picked off the drying rack by the sink. When he replaces the carton in the fridge, he drops the loaf on the plate with a clack and says, “I hate weddings,” and then, because Cain gives him a dubious look, “Okay, I  _ love _ weddings. I just hate going to weddings alone,” he amends, but his tone bends with dejection the longer Cain holds out on him. He slumps into one of the kitchen chairs and starts to break the pieces off the banana loaf, avoiding Cain’s raised eyebrows, “Just thought it’d be fun, you know? Something different for us to do. Get dressed up in fancy fucking suits, go out, party, come home and uh,” his mouth curves up again hopefully, “Y’know.”

Flimsy an excuse it may be, Cain hesitates to completely step all over on Dean’s excitement, his eagerness to let Cain explore other parts of Dean’s life. Despite this, Cain hedges around a clear answer, “I don’t think I have anything to wear,” Cain says. He stands with his back to the window above the sink, arms crossed as he stares at the kitchen table and struggles to remember the last time he even wore a suit, or went to any sort of party that didn’t devolve into some kind of depravity, “Anything I do have will be outdated by at least a decade.”

Dean looks up when he senses a big enough opening to squeeze through, “That’s okay,” his smile grows wickedly. A heavy feeling in Cain's stomach a clear sign that Dean's just gotten his way, “I know a guy.”

—

A bell dingles over their heads as they entered the small shop and Cain immediately feels caught in the middle of a crowd and fallen flat on his face. Mannequins — some with heads and some without — stand in silence about the store in various poses, assorted styles of formal wear and bright accent colours abound. None of it stands out to him as something he could wear in front of people. Even the more dully coloured suits have too many crisp angles for his liking. The rolled up sleeves of his worn out Henley that show off the tattoos on his arms suddenly feel too loud and obnoxious and inappropriate.

White fluorescent lights attached the high ceiling buzz faintly in the silence once the last tinkling of the bells fades.

Cain is very out of his element. Dean, however, strides confidently past him and right up to the service counter. There’s someone crouched behind rummaging through a cupboard and Dean taps the silver bell noisily and quite unnecessarily, but that’s just how Dean is. A burly man makes a noise of small surprise when he stands up behind the cash register holding a black shoe and a brush. His face is round with soft edges, dark blond scruff framing his jaw and mouth. His small eyes seem too light to be so kind, and a smile breaks over his features like sun through rainclouds.

“Dean,” the man says. Although he’s a bit shorter than either Dean or Cain, he fills out the room silence in the room with a tranquil warmth, “Good to see you, brother,” his voice is low and lazy, syllables crashing into one another like ripples on a pond. He holds out his hand to Dean, and his short, thick fingers wrap up to Dean’s wrist in a firm shake.

Dean scoffs, “Sure it is.”

“Wouldn’t lie to you, would I?” Benny’s mouth quirks.

Cain isn’t blind; the familiarity between them reaches beyond tailor and customer, and Benny’s clear blue eyes go softer for Dean. His greeting seemed both thankful and heavy with longing at the same time, but the contradiction doesn’t cause strife between them, and they make small talk of the sort that doesn’t distinguish between best friends and acquaintances.

However, when Benny finally moves his attention from Dean to Cain, Benny’s eyes go inexplicably cold and suspicious, “Friend of yours?” he addresses Dean as his gaze bores into Cain.

Cain waits for Dean to answer, and it’s like he’s tearing himself from a blissful trance as he jerks his head around, pursing his lips like he’s just remembering why they’re here and that it was all Dean’s idea in the first place. There’s a moment of strained pause as Dean untangles himself from Benny’s attention before he clears his throat and says, “Oh, yeah. Sorry. Benny, this is Cain. Cain, Benny.”

Benny nods with his mouth closed tightly.

Cain offers a, “Pleased to meet you,” although he can see the pleasure is not returned in the slightest. Benny’s down-home southern charm is genuine, but it doesn’t camoflage the suspicion rolling off him in waves. It’s remarkably uncomfortable to see how Benny’s entire attitude turns on him, and it only takes a few more seconds before Cain knows that Benny knows the exact nature of his relationship with Dean without having to ask, and it’s precisely what Cain is afraid of should they attend any social gatherings together.

Dean coughs again, “Cain, uh. He needs something to wear. To a wedding. You should see this guy’s closet.”

Benny perks up marginally, his mood swinging back to Dean, who’s begun to awkwardly play with a display of colourful bow ties by the cash register.

“Charlie and Dot?”

“Yeah, you going?”

“‘Course.”

“Bringing anybody?” Dean asks.

From what he’s gathered about these two, Cain winces for Benny but rather than showing any hurt or discomfort from Dean’s question, Benny blinks, shrugs, and takes out a ratty roll of measuring tape from his apron as he walks around the counter. He flicks his fingers briskly at Cain to stand in a clear spot so he can start taking his measurements.

“Nobody to bring,” he replies, and then says to Cain, “straight back, but keep it relaxed,” his fingers are cold and they brush Cain’s neck as the tape measure goes around, skin barely meeting skin. Cain understands that he’s something that Benny wants to avoid touching at all costs, “It’s fine, though. Sure there’ll be plenty of good people there to keep me company,” he replies, an audible wink in his tone.

It’s incredible how Benny can remain so kind and casual towards Dean and at the same time give Cain the distinct feeling that he’s being ruthlessly evaluated. Instead of letting the palpable tension between himself and the tailor get to him, Cain tries to remain focused on relaxing his shoulders as Benny measures the width across, and then around his waist.

Dean chuckles, the distant sound of his voice indicating that he’s wandering around the shop, “Of course there will be. I’m going.”

The warmth in Benny’s voice dips somewhere just out of earshot, a raw nerve struck, “Wouldn’t dream of stealing you away, brother,” he says, his back turned away from them both to write a few things down on a pale yellow sticky note. When he spins on his heel again, his face is friendly and open once more, round cheeks crinkling the skin around his eyes, “Now, let’s see what we can do with you.”

—

Back in Dean’s car with a slip of paper tucked into his pants pocket to pick up his new suit in five business days, Cain buckles his seatbelt and watches distractedly as Dean’s fingers flit over the console to get both the radio and the AC going. The radio crackles and then music twangs through the speakers; thankfully, it’s something that Cain recognizes, but he still reaches out with his own hand to turn it down.

“You were involved with Benny, weren’t you?” he says with no preamble.

Dean was about to bitch at him for touching the radio, but instead he freezes in his seat, “What? C’mon,” he exclaims, trying on an uncomfortable laugh but avoiding Cain’s eyes at the same time. He checks between his mirrors before pulling onto the street, hands wrapped around the wheel tightly, “That isn’t — it shouldn’t—”

“I didn’t mean it  _ that  _ way,” Cain cuts him off before Dean can really start to panic and  accidentally drive them into a light pole, “I’m not jealous. It was just an observation.”

“Yeah, well,” Is Dean’s far off reply. A thin silence pulls up some more questions in Cain’s mind that Dean might not want to answer right now, but one in particular pushes past Cain’s filters before he can check himself.

“He’s not the one who—”

Dean reacts very quickly and aggressively, “No,” and then he starts to laugh for real. He relaxes marginally as he drives. His eyes soften around the edges and he smiles, small and wistful, “Nah, Benny isn’t like that. We dated for a couple months years ago,” he adds.

In his head, Cain places that on the timeline. Something isn’t adding up but he’s certain that Dean isn’t lying to him, “He never hurt you?”

“Benny wouldn’t hurt a fly,” Dean iterates and finally makes eye contact with him at a red light, “Don’t look at me like that. Not  _ all  _ my old boyfriends were brutal assholes.”

Cain forces a grim smile, even though there’s still a faint nagging in the back of his mind, “My apologies,” he says. Truthfully, he didn’t think Benny could possibly be one of those exes, not by the way he smiled and conversed with Dean as easily as if Cain weren’t even in the room. There was no masked possessiveness, no bitterness. Longing, certainly, and a fierce protectiveness that extended towards Cain like an encroaching wildfire, but it seemed to be couched in some kind of understanding between him and Dean, “Can I ask why it never lasted?”

Dean shrugs and brings the car to a halt at another red light, glancing skyward as if God is to blame for the string of reds, and looks around to see that there’s not much traffic, starts to tap the wheel impatiently, “It wasn’t anything bad. I broke up with someone else and Benny was there for me. We went out for a while and I just…I wanted Benny to do to me what my ex did to me, what you do to me, and he wasn’t cool with it,” Dean exhales and bites his lip, “I knew that I was being selfish. But, I was stupid and pushed the issue and he finally told me that we should just go our separate ways if that’s what I want. Got back together with Cas after that.”

“He seems fond of you, still. And you of him,” Cain says.

“What do you want me to say? It was good, but it didn’t work. We broke up and moved on,” Dean replies, “If I hadn’t screwed up…”

“Could you have seen yourself with him? As a lasting relationship?”

Dean looks over at him, suddenly angry. The glow from the streetlight gives him a fiery blush that goes sickly when the light turns, “What the fuck kind of question is that?”

“What do you mean?” Cain’s eyebrows meet tightly..

“I mean you speaking as my current boyfriend, asking me if I can see myself with my former boyfriend?” A car honks behind them and Dean lifts his foot off the brake. He accelerates through the intersection with a jerk, leaving Cain’s stomach behind them.

“Ah,” Cain replies, his throat dry, “I’m sorry. We’re…I’m…there’s…”

Dean sighs, “Shit,” he curses, closes his eyes, and slams his hands down on the top of wheel, “Shit,  _ fuck _ . Sorry, I didn’t…I should have asked first. I know we’re not...That’s my fault.”

“It’s fine,” Cain replies hastily, “It’s fine, Dean. I’m just not sure if our relationship is—”

“Not yet, huh?”

Cain pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, “No.”

—

In the kitchen back at Cain’s home, the awkward misunderstanding in the car barely gets shoved behind them when Dean walks Cain up against the wall, his lips greedy and warm and demanding. A display of antique spoons rattles beside him as Dean cages him with his body and straddles Cain’s knee. His teeth skate below Cain’s ear, scrape his jaw and his hands begin to unbutton the front of his slacks. Dean asks permission to suck him off, eager to forget the past half hour, and Cain would be inclined to leave it for another day, too, if he didn’t know Dean well enough by now to recognize that he intends on never talking about it again.

“We should talk,” Cain replies.

“Christ. This is about what I said in the car,” Dean stops immediately and stands back from Cain. A blush spreads over his cheeks and he rolls his eyes toward the ceiling.

“Sort of. I don’t know if I’m…” Cain pauses. This is not the conversation he’s sure he knows how to have, and he’s never had it with anybody before but there’s been nobody like  _ Dean _ before. And it’s one they must have now that it’s come up, “I think you deserve a stable intimate relationship with someone who doesn’t routinely spank you until you cry.”

“What if I like that?” Dean waggles his eyebrows with his arms folded over his chest.

“I know you like that, goodness, I’m not going to argue with you about that. But I’m just concerned that you’d be keeping yourself from something  _ else _ that you also like and that I can’t give you,” Cain replies. He’s kept his own feelings about Dean to himself, a small yearning for the affectionate moments between them that extend beyond their roles as dominant and submissive, but just given Dean’s personality he knows that entangling the two things too much might cause harm to Dean that neither of them will be able to understand or repair, “You think you can see this lasting between us?”

Dean steps back even further and wipes the saliva off his lips, fixes his shirt collar briskly and looks away from Cain, “Uh, I was kind of hoping it would. It’s going good, right?”

Free to move around now, Cain busies his hands with the coffee pot. He’s not a huge fan of coffee, but he knows that caffeine is practically a separate food group for Dean, “But you don’t want anything else, ever? Just a boyfriend with whom your sex life is almost exclusively centered on power dynamics?”

“Don’t do that,” Dean’s holding two mugs in either hand, “I hate that. You aren’t my shrink.”

“I’m just asking for honesty.”

Dean hesitates and looks pissed, red, ashamed. The glower deepens as he sets the mugs down, walks across the kitchen as if he’s going to walk out on Cain, and then walks back, now pacing like a trapped animal. Finally, “No. Okay? It’s not all I want.”

“I see,” is all Cain says.

“But I also want  _ this _ ,” Dean waves the air between them, “I  _ like _ this and I like you and I want both, but I can’t really have both.”

“Says who?” Cain asks, the answer already forming in his mind and confirmed when Dean shoots him a nasty, wide-eyed look, “Would it help if I said I don’t mind if you have other relationships?” Cain asks, “I already told you. I’m not the jealous type. And I don’t think I ever said anything about this being exclusive.”

“So, what? Are you trying to set me up with my old boyfriend?” Dean says, his voice small and fading, as if he’s afraid to speak loudly and scatter his words carelessly, “I already told you, he isn’t…I don’t think he’s totally okay with what I like, even if it’s a whole separate thing with you. Even if we’re not technically  _ boyfriends _ ,” he adds, hairline bitterness to his tone.

Cain lets it go. It’s something they will talk about, but for now Cain needs to devote some time to his own insecurities regarding the hazy status of their relationship as it progresses, “Does it hurt to ask him?”

Dean looks into his empty coffee mug.

“Dean.”

“It’s not like it’s the easiest thing to bring up with him, okay?”

The coffee gurgles in the pot and Dean is staring at his mug like his life depends on it. The silence spreads out like a liquid, seeping and clogging. Without a word, Cain takes Dean’s mug and fills it for him. When he passes it back, Dean wraps both hands around the mug and continues to gaze at the black drink, but Cain doesn’t let go. 

“You underestimate how much people care about you,” he says firmly, “I don’t know if you noticed while we were out, but Benny still very clearly adores you. It was there. And the way he looked at  _ me _ …,” Cain recalls the distinctly cold way Benny addressed him, the threat beneath the friendliness that he’ll be there the second Dean says he needs him, but Dean is rolling his eyes again, “Are you even listening to me?”

“Yeah, blah, blah, poor broken Dean is so oblivious to love, hates himself so much, yadda yadda,” he mocks bitterly, “I know what Benny thinks of me, all right? But if it’ll shut you up, I’ll try. He’ll say no, but I’ll try anyway.”

Despite the prickly edge to Dean’s tone, there’s a wry quirk at his lips. Cain gives a short chuckle and leaves Dean to bring his steaming mug to his lips.

After a long pull after which Dean winces and goes  _ ahh _ , he adds, “And my self-esteem is just fine, okay? I know I’m irresistible.”

—

Later, once Dean’s had two cups of coffee and a large piece of banana bread, he asks if he can stay over again. Cain says yes, he applies the stipulation that there’s to be no sex between them. Just sleep, and Dean agrees to it despite the slightly crestfallen dip in his posture.

When they do finally get into Cain’s bed, Dean keeps his hands mostly to himself, and asks somewhat petulantly if they can at least make out for a bit. When Cain allows him to, Dean’s mouth meets his in less than a second, hungry. His lips are soft and hurried on Cain’s, stealing kiss after kiss like he’s going to be plucked off at any second and tucked in. He shed most of his clothes before crawling into bed beside Cain, but his hands stay firmly where Cain can see them, one on Cain’s shoulder and the other atop the blankets, curled in a loose fist.

After a while, Dean lets out a small satisfied sigh and rests his chin on Cain’s sternum, his breath warm and catching in the dark hair there.

“This fine?” 

“I suppose.”

“Good. Thanks,” Dean drawls and adjusts his position so he’s cheek to heartbeat on Cain’s chest, the nearly naked length of him pressed up close. His bare legs brush against Cain’s shyly, and Cain answers the request by hooking his knee under Dean’s and pulling him closer.  
  



End file.
